Volume Two of the Secession Trilogy, continuing the saga begun in Born Blind.
“Incredibly detailed and thought provoking. Unorthodox yet superbly unbiased and balanced in its historical accounting of an extraordinary what-if scenario….My favorite historical fiction series.” Amazon reviewer
“A cautionary tale … this novel helps us to see a way forward if we are wise enough to make the adjustments needed in order to live in freedom.” Amazon reviewer
The national crisis that erupted in Born Blind intensifies as Tennessee’s petition to withdraw from the Union goes to trial before the Supreme Court. The president and the congress strive to pre-empt the court’s verdict ahead of the elections of 1860. Does the Constitution dictate that the votes of only five justices can validate Tennessee’s withdrawal? Or does the vote of the people and the congress trump the power of the judiciary?
The Scott brothers and their blind slave Gamaliel now operate at the highest levels of government in Washington City and Nashville. Jerald counsels the president and congress to take up their constitutional tools to oppose secession. Lee joins Tennessee and the gulf coastal states as they plot to secede without judicial approval or legislative consent. Gamaliel urges the supreme court justices to acknowledge the Constitution’s flaws even as he challenges the Republican presidential nominee to emancipate his race.
Every check and balance crafted into the Constitution is employed by the competing forces. Did the wisdom of the founding fathers enable the states to resolve their differences peaceably under the rule of law? Or did their compromises ensure that this constitutional case will be tried on the battlefield?
The Secession Trilogy – by Jackson S. Riddle
A Potter’s Vessel – (Vol. 2, published November 23, 2021)
Time: 1860
Primary locations:
– Panther Springs, TN (30 miles NE of Knoxville on the Holston River) – prosperous slave-managed farm of the Scott family with two homes, one for Jeremiah and Rachel and another for Jerald and Gamaliel;
– Nashville, TN – State Capitol building; Polk Place, home of Sarah Polk, widow of 11th President;
– The Hermitage – estate of President Andrew Jackson, now owned by the state of Tennessee and site of new U. S. military installation
– Springfield, Illinois – Illinois statehouse; Western & Ohio Depot
– Washington City (capital of these United States) – President’s House; new Senate chamber; new Supreme Court Chamber (old Senate chamber); Arlington House, home of Lee family; home of Supreme Court Justice John Catron; Willard Hotel
Additional characters:
(fictional)
Charles Stone – free African telegraph operator in Washington, D.C., becomes assistant to Gamaliel
(historical)
Sallie Polk – great-niece of Sarah Polk
David Davis – Illinois circuit court judge; close advisor to Abraham Lincoln
Jameson Jenkins – Free African businessman in Springfield, IL; neighbor of Abraham Lincoln
Stephen Douglas (IL), Simon Cameron (PA), Jefferson Davis (MS), Andrew Johnson (TN), William Seward (NY), Jesse Bright (IN) – United States Senators
Thomas Corwin – United States Representative (IL)
Born Blind – (Vol. 1, published September 23, 2020)
Time: 1845-1860
Primary locations:
– Panther Springs, TN (30 miles NE of Knoxville on the Holston River) – prosperous slave-managed farm of the Scott family;
– Nashville, TN – State Capitol building; Polk Place, home of Sarah Polk, widow of 11th President of the United States;
– West Point, NY – United States Military Academy;
– Kansas Territory – various sites in “Bleeding Kansas”;
– Washington City – capital of these United States.
Principal Characters:
The Scott Family – all fictional:
– Jeremiah Scott (b. 1798) – successful planter in East Tennessee; Christian slave-holder supporting emancipation;
– Sarah Scott – (b. 1806) – Jeremiah’s wife; supportive of emancipation;
– Rachel Scott- (b. 1780) Jeremiah’s mother, widow of Jonathan; Christian slave-holder and educator for her family; opposes emancipation;
– Capt. Lee Scott (b. 1826) – Jeremiah’s and Sarah’s eldest son; Mexican War cavalry volunteer; U.S. military academy graduate; served with distinction in Kansas Territory; supports continuation slavery and supports secession;
– Jerald Scott – (b. 1827) – Jeremiah’s and Sarah’s second son; lawyer and Tennessee state representative; opponent of slavery; opponent of secession, but architect of constitutional secession petition by the state of Tennessee.
The Morris Family – all fictional:
– Zechariah “Zech” Morris – (b. ca. 1804) – Slave purchased by Jonathan Scott at auction when he was about six; raised with Jeremiah; now grown and acting as overseer of Scott farm;
– Eliza “Liza” Morris – (b. unknown) – Zech’s wife, purchased by Jeremiah from neighboring farm to marry Zech; house maid to Sarah and Rachel Scott;
– Gamaliel “Gam” Morris – (b. 1832) – only son of Zech and Liza; blind from birth; raised mostly by the Scotts in the family manor home rather than the Morris’ cabin by the river; educated by Rachel Scott and Tennessee School for the Blind.
Others – all historical:
– William Brownlow – (b. 1805) – firebrand publisher and editor of Brownlow’s Knoxville Whig, most widely-circulated newspaper in East Tennessee; ardent supporter of slavery and opponent of secession; fervently anti-Democratic Party;
– Sarah Childress Polk – (b. 1803) – widow of James K. Polk, 11th President of these United States; slave-holder and owner of plantation in MS purchased by her husband while he was president; continuing political force in Tennessee and Washington City; resides at Polk Place, family mansion in Nashville near the Tennessee Capitol;
– John C. Catron – (b. 1786) – Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court appointed by President Jackson on the final day of his presidency; previously served as Chief Justice of Tennessee Supreme Court of Errors and Appeals; married to Matilda Childress, cousin of Sarah Polk; author of many opinions upholding slavery; opponent of secession;
– Matilda Catron – (b. 1802) – wife of Justice John Catron and cousin to Sarah Polk;
– Washington Whitthorne – (b. 1825) – Lawyer and Speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives; childhood mentee of James K. Polk and adult friend of his widow, Sarah Polk; publicly supportive of slavery; privately opposed to secession;
– Isham Harris – (b. 1808) – Lawyer and Democratic Governor of Tennessee; plantation owner and ardent proponent of slavery and secession;
– George Washington Custis Lee – (b. 1832) Lieutenant, United States Corps of Engineers; graduated first in the U.S. Military Academy class of 1854; eldest son of Captain Robert E. Lee; inherited owner of Arlington House, subject to life-estate in favor of his mother, Mary Anna Custis Lee, and now managed by his father, Rob’t Lee.
– Harriet “Hal” Lane – (b. 1830) – niece of President James Buchanan, official hostess to the president at the executive mansion, 1857-1860;
– John W. Head – (b. 1822) – Tennessee Attorney General, tasked with prosecuting the state’s secession petition before the U. S. Supreme Court.
– U. S. Supreme Court Justices: Chief Justice Roger Taney, John McLean, James Wayne, Peter Daniel, Samuel Nelson, Robert Grier, Benjamin Curtis, John Campbell, Nathan Clifford;
– Andrew Johnson, U. S. Congressman from Tennessee;
– Colonel John James Abert – (b. 1788) – Chief of the U. S. Topographical Corps of Engineers.
Bibliography – Below is a cumulative list of my sources, including those used in writing Born Blind:
- Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Frederick Douglass
- Confederates in the Attic, Tony Horowitz
- Spying on the South, Tony Horowitz
- We Have the War Upon Us, William Cooper
- The Impending Conflict, David Potter
- Lady First, Amy Greenberg
- The Unvanquished, William Faulkner
- Secession on Trial, Cynthia Nicoletti
- Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
- The Bondwoman’s Narrative, Hannah Crafts
- Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker, Jennifer Chiverina
- Top 100 Constitutional Law Cases, ed. AudioLegal Team
- We Hold These Truths, Mortimer Adler
- Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet B. Stowe
- These Truths, Jill LePore
- Lincoln and the Chief Justice, James Simon
- Lincoln and the Decision for War, Russell McLintock
- Sarah Childress Polk, a biography, Bumgarner
- William G. Brownlow, Coulter
- San Antonio – A Tricentennial History, Miller
- Heart of the Valley, a History of Knoxville, Deaderick, ed.
- The Road to Disunion!, William Freehling
- Robert E. Lee, Roy Blount, Jr.
- Ratification, Pauline Maier
- We the States, VA Comm. on Const. Gov’t
- The Federalist Papers, James Madison, John Jay, Alexander Hamilton
- “John Catron and Jacksonian Jurisprudence,” Allen
- “Tennessee Reaction to Nullification,” Bergeron
- “The Use of the Federal Injunction in Constitutional Litigation,” Lockwood
- “Party Politics and the Debate Over the Tennessee Negro Bill,” So. Hist. Journal
- “When Can a State Sue the U.S., 101 Cornell Law Rev. 851
- History of the Supreme Court, Peter Irons
- “The Lost History of the Political Question Doctrine,” Grove, NY Law Rev.
- “Political Questions, Public Rights, and Sovereign Immunity” Note 130 Hou. Law Rev. 723
- “Supreme Court Justices: A biographical dictionary”, Hall
- “Pioneers, Patriots and Politicians: The Tennessee Militia System, 1772-1857”, Smith
- Beloved, Toni Morrison
- The Real Lincoln, Thomas DiLorenzo
- “John C. Calhoun and the Secession Movement of 1850”, Am. Antiq. Soc., April, 1918
Letters of a Nation, A. Carroll, ed. - Sweet Taste of Liberty, Caleb McDaniel
- Worst. President. Ever., Roberty Strauss
- Midnight Rising, Tony Horowitz
- Presidents of War, Michael Beschloss
- A Disease of the Public Mind, Thomas Fleming
- This Vast Southern Empire, Matthew Karp
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- Summoned to Glory, The Audacious Life of Abraham Lincoln, Richard Striner
- “The Buchanan-Douglas Feud”, Auchampaugh, Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society (1908-1984)Vol. 25, No. 1/2 (Apr. – Jul., 1932), pp. 5-48
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- Calhoun, American Heretic, Robert Elder
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- “A Conservative in Lincoln’s Cabinet: Edward Bates of Missouri”, University of Missouri, St. Louis, ILR@UMSL, Mark Alan Neels, Thesis (May 12, 2009)
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- “Stopping Time: The Pro-Slavery and ‘Irrevocable’ Thirteenth Amendment”, A. Christopher Bryant, U. of Cincinnati College of Law Scholarship and Publications, 2003
- Life and Speeches of Thomas Corwin: Orator, Lawyer and Statesman, 1896 (ed., Josiah Morrow)
“Presenting the Case for the United States as it Should Be: The Office of Solicitor General in Historical Context,” Seth P. Waxman, lecture before the Supreme Court Historical Society, June 1, 1998 - Lincoln on the Verge, Ted Widmer
- The Civil War as a Theological Crisis, Mark Noll
- Decision in Philadelphia, Christopher Collier and James Lincoln Collier
- History of the Lost State of Franklin, Samuel Cole Williams
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- On Augustine, Rowan Williams (dense but profound in many respects)
- Living Wisely With the Church Fathers, Christopher Hall
- Summoned to Glory, The Audacious Life of Abraham Lincoln, Richard Striner (author is audacious, too)
- Without Precedent, The Life of John Marshall, Joel Richard Paul
Apostles of Disunion, Charles Dew (eye-opening historical record) - The Mansion, William Faulkner (my favorite of the Snopes trilogy)
- Calhoun, American Heretic, Robert Elder
- The War Before the War, Andrew Delbanco
- Lincoln on the Verge, Ted Widmer
- The Civil War as a Theological Crisis, Mark Noll
- The Saddest Words, William Faulkner’s Civil War, Michael Gorra
- History of the Lost State of Franklin, Samuel Cole Williams
- My Reading Life, Pat Conroy
- Decision in Philadelphia, J. Collier and S. Collier
- The Coming Fury, Bruce Catton
- Polk, The Man who Transformed the Presidency and America, Walter Borneman
- John Tyler, The Accidental President, Edward Crapol
- The Problem with Lincoln, Thomas DiLorenzo
- Break it Up, Richard Kreitner
- James Madison, America’s First Politician, Jay Cost
- Rebels in the Making, William Barney
- Madness Rules the Hour: Charleston, 1860, Paul Starobin
- “Internal Dissent: East Tennessee’s Civil War – 1849-1865”, Meredith Anne Grant, East Tennessee State University, Master’s Thesis (2008)
- “The Economic Structure of Rural Tennessee – 1850-1860”, Frank L. and Harriet C. Owsley, The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 8, No. 2 (May, 1942),
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- “Life Portrait of Andrew Johnson,” https://www.c-span.org/video/?150104-1/life-portrait-andrew-johnson.
- “Life Portrait of Abraham Lincoln,” https://www.c-span.org/video/?125640-1/life-portrait-abraham-lincoln
- 1861: The Civil War Awakening, Adam Goodheart
- The Myth of the Lost Cause, Edward Bonekemper
- Freedom at Risk: The Kidnapping of Free Blacks in America, 1780-1865, Carol Wilson
- The Broken Constitution, Lincoln, Slavery, and the Refounding of America, Noah Feldman
- The U. S. Constitution and Secession, A Documentary Anthology of Slavery and White Supremacy, Dwight Pitcaithley, ed.
- Tennessee Secedes, Dwight Pitcaithley
- The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America, Greg Grandin
- The Cause, the American Revolution and its Discontents, 1773-1783, Joseph J. Ellis
- Parties, Politics, and the Sectional Conflict in Tennessee – 1832-1861, Jonathan M. Atkins
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- Lincoln, Aaron Vidal
- Free to Move, Ilya Somin
- “Internal Dissent: East Tennessee’s Civil War, 1849-1865”, Meredith Anne Grant, Master’s Thesis, East Tennessee State University, August, 2008
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- “The Assertions of a Secessionist”, Alexander H. Stephens, Nov. 14, 1860
- “James Buchanan and the Crisis of the Union,” Frank Wysor Klingberg, Journal of Southern History, Vol. 9, No. 4, pp. 455-474; Nov. , 1943.
- Who Decides? States as Laboratories of Constitutional Experimentation, Jeffrey Sutton
- A Wicked War, Amy Greenberg
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- John Quincy Adams, Harlow Giles Unger
- The Crooked Path to Abolition, James Oakes
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- No Property in Man, Sean Wilentz
- Divided We Fall, David French
- A Country of Vast Designs, Robert Merry
- “Party Politics and the Debate Over the Tennessee Free Negro Bill, 1859-1860”, Jonathan M. Atkins, Journal of Southern History, Vol 71, No. 2 (2005)